Org Charts Show Leadership, Reporting Changes in Mobile Finance Department as $14.7 Million Fraud Took Shape
A comparison of city organizational charts dated Nov. 5, 2025, and Aug. 19, 2026, shows the Mobile finance department changed leaders and reporting lines in the months around the $14.7 million fraud.
MOBILE, Ala. — The City of Mobile’s Finance Department went through significant changes in leadership and structure in the months before the public learned that $14.7 million had been sent to a fraudster posing as the Regions Arena contractor.
A comparison of two city organizational charts, one dated Nov. 5, 2025, and the other Aug. 19, 2026, shows changes in several positions that matter for how money moves through city government, including the finance director, the comptroller, capital projects and treasury.
The charts do not explain the fraud, and they do not show that any of the changes caused it. But they do document who held which jobs, and who reported to whom, during the period when the scheme was developing. That has made them relevant to the question council members and residents keep asking: how were oversight, vendor verification and payment approval divided inside the department?
What the November 2025 chart showed
On the November chart, Donna Bryars was serving as both interim finance executive director and deputy finance director. The comptroller’s position was vacant. Treasury was not separately identified at all.
The reporting lines also looked different from what would come later. Capital Projects appeared beneath Revenue. The comptroller’s slot sat beneath Procurement, with Grants Management listed below the comptroller.
What changed by August 2026
By the August chart, the department’s leadership and internal structure had shifted. Logan Gewin, who has said he was hired in April, had taken over as executive director of finance after a national search.
Capital Projects was under different leadership, with Tiffany Hollins listed in the position previously held by Relya Mallory.
Some things did not change. Procurement stayed under Don Rose, and Mauria King continued to oversee Revenue. Both charts also place the Finance Department under Chief of Operations James Barber, who reports to Mayor Spiro Cheriogotis. Barber’s senior administrative position was the same on both documents.
A side-by-side look
- Finance director: Donna Bryars as interim in November 2025; Logan Gewin by August 2026
- Comptroller: Vacant in November 2025; among the positions that changed by August 2026
- Treasury: Not separately identified in November 2025; among the changes shown by August 2026
- Capital Projects: Relya Mallory’s position in the earlier chart, with Tiffany Hollins listed in August 2026; previously shown beneath Revenue
- Procurement: Don Rose on both charts
- Revenue: Mauria King on both charts
- Chief of Operations: James Barber on both charts
How the timeline lines up
The changes overlap with the beginning of the scheme. According to Gewin, it started in late May 2026, when someone impersonating a legitimate contractor contacted the Finance Department.
Over the following months, the impostor built trust through emails, documents and telephone calls. A city employee eventually provided a genuine contractor invoice, which helped make the fraudulent communications look real. Banking information tied to the contractor was then changed in the city’s financial system.
The city submitted the $14.7 million payment on Oct. 2. Gewin has since said in an interview that the length of the exchange helped establish credibility when more senior staff became involved, and that the impostor used a “charming” manner to build rapport.
During the Oct. 27 City Council meetings, officials discussed the breakdown in the city’s payment verification procedures. They also disclosed that the transaction did not go through the Treasury Department, a detail that has drawn particular attention because treasury appears to have been separately identified only on the later chart.
The administration has terminated one employee and placed two others on paid administrative leave. Those employees have not been publicly named, and nothing in the charts identifies them.
What the charts can and can’t tell us
An organizational chart is a snapshot of titles and boxes. It does not show who actually handled a vendor request, who signed off on a bank change or who released a payment. Those details are the subject of an independent review and of investigations by the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service.
What the charts do raise is a set of structural questions:
- Which positions were responsible for verifying a vendor’s changed banking information during the months the requests were moving through the department?
- Who had authority over the payment after the comptroller and treasury functions were reorganized?
- Why did a payment of this size not pass through Treasury?
- Did a period of vacancies and new leadership affect how closely existing procedures were followed?
Gewin has said that the policies in place at the time would have thwarted the criminals if they had been strictly followed, and that he and his staff were working on stricter rules when the scam occurred. New verification policies adopted after a separate August incident were not applied to the arena conversation already underway.
What comes next
The City Council’s Finance Committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday, Nov. 3, at 1 p.m., and again Nov. 17 at 205 Government Plaza to discuss the transaction. Public questions and comments will not be taken at those working sessions, but the meetings could offer the clearest look yet at how responsibilities were assigned in the department.
